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Carl Elliott
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The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No Hardcover – 4 July 2024

by Carl Elliott (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 35 ratings
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The Occasional Human Sacrifice is an intellectual inquiry into the moral struggle that whistleblowers face, and why it is not the kind of struggle that most people imagine.

Carl Elliott is a bioethicist at the University of Minnesota who was trained in medicine as well as philosophy. For many years he fought for an external inquiry into a psychiatric research study at his own university in which an especially vulnerable patient lost his life. Elliott's efforts alienated friends and colleagues. The university stonewalled him and denied wrongdoing until a state investigation finally vindicated his claims.

His experience frames the six stories in this book of medical research in which patients were deceived into participating in experimental programs they did not understand, many of which had astonishing and well-concealed mortality rates. Beginning with the public health worker who exposed the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and ending with the four physicians who in 2016 blew the whistle on lethal synthetic trachea transplants at the Karolinska Institute, Elliott tells the extraordinary stories of insiders who spoke out against such abuses, and often paid a terrible price for doing the right thing.

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  1. Print length
    368 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    *Norton agency titles
  4. Publication date
    4 July 2024
  5. Dimensions
    16 x 3.05 x 23.88 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    1324065508
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1324065500
  8. See all details
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Review

Elliott has a reporter's eye for expressive details, and his matter-of-fact approach is an effective way to write about stories that shock the conscience.--Seth Mnookin "The Atlantic"

Masterfully written .... A must-read for the throngs of students obsessed with someday wearing a stethoscope around their necks.--Gordon Marino "Los Angeles Review of Books"

Meticulous and compelling.... I was unable to stop reading this astonishing book's riveting accounts of the paradoxes inherent in assuming the role, action, and devastating punishments accruing to medical whistleblower. I absorbed it in a single evening.--Harriet Washington, author of Medical Apartheid

A bristling, courageous account of the moral struggles faced by critics in academic medicine.--Ellen Ruppel Shell "Boston Globe"

A thriller-like work of nonfiction.--Michael Glitz "Parade"

Gut-wrenching but fascinating tales of human nature, conformity, and power.--Jenn White "NPR"

Riveting.... Detailing the extreme pressures to stay loyal that whistleblowers face, Elliott paints a damning portrait of the medical community's workplace culture. Readers will be outraged and enthralled.-- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"

A brilliant, harrowing book: part medical investigation, part memoir, part searing portrait of human behavior-- from systematic cruelty to near-obsessive moral codes. Carl Elliott has written a page-turner that manages to be both cynical and deeply compassionate. Urgent, unforgettable, and beautifully written.--Julie Schumacher, author of Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement

Carl Elliott, one of America's most important and humane voices calling out medical corruption, goes deep in The Occasional Human Sacrifice. It's not only about research that amounts to human torture, or even taking on some of the marquee institutions in science. This important book explores how corruption in any realm germinates and why people blow the whistle despite the price they pay.--Brian Alexander, author of Glass House and The Hospital

What reads at first like a sly crash course on Nicomachean ethics quickly reveals itself as a rip snorting thriller about lone-wolf whistleblowers who've peeked inside America's elegant, well-funded human-trial labs to find a bloody, nearly Aztecan barbarism.--Jack Hitt, author of Off the Road and Bunch of Amateurs

Fascinating....A disturbingly eye-opening read.-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"

From the Back Cover

Praise for Carl Elliott

Better Than Well

"A superbly crafted book. . . . [A] penetrating look at our self-obsessed, overmedicalized, enhancement-addicted society."
-- Shannon Brownlee, Washington Post

"Elliott's absorbing account will make readers think again about the ways that science shapes our personal identities."
-- Michael Szpir, American Scientist

White Coat, Black Hat

"Elliott grips the reader's attention all the way."
-- Scientific American

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ *Norton agency titles; 1st edition (4 July 2024)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1324065508
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324065500
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16 x 3.05 x 23.88 cm
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 35 ratings

About the author

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Carl Elliott

Carl Elliott

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Carl Elliott is a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota. Trained in medicine as well as philosophy, Elliott is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar Award, the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the Library of Congress, a resident fellowship at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, and the Weatherhead Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Mother Jones and The American Scholar. He has been a visiting faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the University of Sydney, and the University of Otago in New Zealand, where he is an affiliate of the Bioethics Centre.

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AlaskaGale
5.0 out of 5 stars found my tribe- its Humans at their best & worst
Reviewed in the United States on 22 August 2024
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Carl anchors our history in Niche’s words “what doesn’t kill you makes your stonger” a great idea with very terrifying outcomes that are overlooked. This book is a must read for anyone considering an attempt to hold people to their promises.
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Christopher Doig
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent read
Reviewed in Canada on 14 August 2024
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Very interesting read highlighting his personal experience and reviewing many well known other ‘cases’. Excellent writing. Very engaging. Thoughtful without moralizing.
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Katherine A Evensen
5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply honest and profoundly brave
Reviewed in the United States on 27 May 2024
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The Occasional Human Sacrifice reads as both disturbing and hopeful. Although I work in the Church and the particulars of the stories are different, the response of leaders and the outcomes are the same. His book is a well-researched take on the burden of being a whistleblower, at times funny, and always compassionate. The reader can tell he is a person of honor and personal integrity. As daunting as the task of saying no to egregious behavior might have been, the whistleblowers in this book, at great personal cost, have made a profound mark on the world, and it is better for them.
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garlec
5.0 out of 5 stars well written but depressing book
Reviewed in the United States on 17 August 2024
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It's sad to see how many medical projects continue despite harm to subjects. This book is beautifully written by a guy who knows
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Morris Waxler
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful written insights
Reviewed in the United States on 17 May 2024
Verified Purchase
Dr. Elliott shows the complexity of telling the truth in the face of complicity and silence. I know this all too well. The FDA approval and marketing of LASIK surgery is a prime example. Thirty percent of LASIK patients suffer chronic cornea pain, poor vision, and eye weakness. My recent book details this scandal. The Unsightly Truth of Laser Vision Correction: LASIK Surgery Makes Healthy Eyes Sick.

Morris Waxler, Ph.D.
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